Presidential Transition 2000:
Geoscience-Related Federal Appointments

A final note: This document was prepared before the dust had settled
on the presidential election. Now that the Bush-Cheney Administration has
been inaugurated, the political appointment process has shifted from the
Transition Office to the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.
All communications regarding political appointments should be addressed
to Clay Johnson – now the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel
and Deputy Chief of Staff – at: White House Office of Presidential Personnel,
Eisenhower Executive Office Building, 17th St. & Pennsylvania Ave.,
Washington DC 20502. (2-3-01)

Even before the election, small teams within each campaign have been
working to prepare for the transition to a new administration. Mostly,
their pre-election operations were kept quiet to avoid the appearance of
over-confidence, but they also worked openly with the General
Services Administration to ensure that the official transition team
office space at 1800 G Street NW is ready with phone lines, computers,
and all the trimmings. One of the most important tasks for the transition
team is to fill presidential appointments from the Cabinet level on down.

This appointment process presents an opportunity for the geoscience
community as it does for all constituencies. Key positions to be filled
at federal agencies and within the White House can have a major impact
on the conduct of geoscience education, research, and other activities
as well as the employment of geoscientists. To aid geoscientists
in this endeavor, the AGI Government Affairs Program has gathered information
on the process and available positions as resources for interested individuals
and organizations in promoting earth scientists to these appointments.

At the beginning of November, AGI sent out a memo to its member societies
outlining positions available and the nomination process, including a list
of geoscience-related political appointments (Acrobat
4.0 PDF file, 117 KB; Word97
file, 41 KB) in federal departments and agencies. This document
should not be taken as a comprehensive list of high-ranking federal leadership
positions since many of those are not strictly presidential appointments.
For example, the head of the Geosciences Directorate at NSF is a career
civil service appointment. But the list does include the positions that
first the transition team and later the designees for science advisor and
Cabinet posts will be looking to fill. The process operates from the top
down, filling first the Cabinet positions, then their deputies, then their
deputies in turn.

Additional Resources

The
Office of Personnel Management
has provided
general
employment information that helps answer questions of salary, benefits,
and position category. The Brookings
Institute also has a very complete resource center for people and groups
interested in the appointee process. Another resource available on
the transition to a new administration is the United States Government
Policy and Supporting Positions, commonly known as the Plum
Book, that lists a range of federal civil service and support staff
positions in the Executive and Legislative Branches. Application information
for presidential appointments is available at the Bush-Cheney Transition
website http://www.bushcheneytransition.com.

Earlier this fall, the National Academy
of Sciences released a report
on the presidential appointment process for science and technology
positions. The report found that in recent years, the percentage of top-level
appointments completed within four months of nomination had slipped from
80-90 percent, the norm from 1964 to 1984, to 45 percent since then. The
report recommended that steps be taken to initiate the appointment process
for key science and technology leadership early in the transition, reduce
financial and vocational obstacles to government service in order to increase
the pool of scientists and engineers willing to serve, and streamline the
approval process both within the administration and in the Senate. It remains
to be seen whether the new administration will consider these recommendations
or improve upon the recent track record.

Contributed by Margaret Baker and David Applegate, AGI Government Affairs
Program

Posted December 1, 2000; Updated February 3, 2001

Please send any comments or requests for information to AGI Government
Affairs Program at govt@agiweb.org.